my life in pencil

My right ring finger, meaning it is not a wedding or engagement ring.

It is a ten dollar ring I bought my sophomore year in high school.

It has no significant meaning, it isn’t a ‘promise’ ring (a ring evangelicals made up, to encourage saving sex for marriage, i think). My mom didn’t craft it out of titanium, no high school sweet heart bought it for me.

I honestly bought it because I thought wearing a ring was cool at the time. I didn’t even like it the first week.

6 years later, it has a few scratches, but is on the same finger. I can’t get rid of it.

It is breaking at the seam (cheap rings have seams, where the bent metal meets). I don’t particularly like the look of it. It is still annoying when washing my hands.

Regardless, knowing it is the one material thing that has been with me through so much, I don’t want to take it off.

Graduation, high school girlfriends, soccer practice, half marathons, drug deals (in high school), Christian conversion experiences, my first espresso, my first good espresso, Bible school, Paris, England, Mark Driscoll, negative 12 degrees, Wisconsin, countless Kamel Reds, holding hands with someone I loved, giving the finger to people I don’t. The list goes on! Oh the things this ring has seen, touched, heard.

A third of my life. Half of my life when you consider I wasn’t a real person until 5 anyways. It is an ugly stupid ring!

Ah but what a sucker I am. It is like the saying “if these walls could talk” (I think it was a movie also, right?). The stories they would tell.

Next time you see me, if you feel so inclined, take my ring off my finger, the one I don’t even like, and throw it away…Fine by me, we all know I won’t do it myself.

Growing up I always wanted to be an Olympian. I remember standing in my room with the door closed pretending I was on the podium accepting the gold. Planning out which words of the National Anthem I would sing, which I wouldn’t. If I would have the stone cold look of success on my face, or the let-it-all-out relief of being able to take a break the next day.

• Whenever I watch the Olympics I turn into a wreck. Whoever it is that wins, I will almost guaranteed sob, at least on the inside (depending on who I am with) knowing the amount of work they put into being where they are.
• On one hand, it makes me feel worthless. I will never be there. Being motivated to dedicate my life to sport once every two years (for about a month) isn’t going to be enough. Chances are, I won’t ever be the best in the world at anything.
• When someone uses the phrase “On one hand” it usually implies they have a follow up point preceded with “On the other hand.” I don’t remember my follow up point.

I just paused writing for fifteen minutes to look for my iron pills. I have been feeling weak lately, being anemic and all does that to you. Iron pills do two things for me: increase the iron in my blood, and tear apart my stomach. The latter being sucky.

• Fuck I am so bored.
• So bored in fact, that I picked up cussing more frequently as a hobby, hoping to add some excitement to my life.
• If I am not at work (which I am not at work often enough for the time being [go spend a lot of money at the coffee shop so i can have a consistent job please]) I…well..I don’t do much.

• Sometimes I put quotation marks around things i make up that aren’t quotes, so that if people think it is stupid, they think it was just a stupid quote, rather than something i made up.
• other times I put real quotes around quotations, but don’t attribute an author.
• googling the quote will usually tell you if i made it up or not.

One of the better things I have done lately is telling the truth when I pray to God. Recent prayers include:

• God, I don’t want to pray right now.
• God, can you make an espresso grinder that doesn’t suck?
• God, it is 10:30pm do you know where your Son is? (then God and I had a good laugh)
• God, that earthquake move was low.

A couple of weeks ago I realized this terribly poetic terrible thing about myself. Terrible to the point where I think sharing it on the interwebz is a terrible decision.

• New York isn’t going to happen this year.
• I read up on the difference between a tincture and a bitter for like an hour the other night, still confused.

“I’m not tired anymore. I just want to get away from here.”

“Go back to sleep angel, mom is gonna keep the devil away.”

Aisle 4: Pasta, Pasta Sauce

Aisle 7: Frozen Pizza

Aisle 12: Chips and Crackers

Yeah, I went down those aisles.

I felt guilty, a little dirty, and embarrassed. I wanted Chips, but decided to purchase them another visit. I felt lazy buying a jar of spaghetti sauce on sale for a dollar, knowing I could make the same amount with diced tomatoes and spices at home.

I knew there was going to be one night this week that I wasn’t going to want to cook, and having a shitty frozen pizza to throw in the oven would be awesome.

Also in my shopping basket: rice (not instant), leeks, potatoes, onions, butter, bread, and green onions. Maybe some other staples, I don’t remember.

What I do remember though, is feeling guilty with that pizza in my basket.

“Do I really need this? The sausage on here most certainly came from a pig that lived a horrible life. I doubt one thing about this pizza isn’t processed several times. I could cook something better, and cheaper with a little more effort.”

What I remember even more: The guy in line in front of me. Ten pizzas, popcorn, hot dogs, TV Dinners, and all sorts of things that don’t require medium heat. After thoroughly judging him, his energy drinks, and his $65 dollar bill (for probably the same amount of food in weight as my $12 total), I realized something.

This is most of America.

This is most of my neighbors.

This is killing us.

I looked at the cart behind me. The next check out over. The lady putting her grocery’s in bags. It was all the same food. High fat. High salt. Highly processed.

I think there is a need here. People need to know how to cook, even the most basic things. Not large extravagant meals to show off to friends. Sure, roasting a duck might be out of the question for a lot of people, but if every household know how to cook 10 simple meals from scratch, I wonder how much healthier we would all be.

I have so much more on the subject/this story.

Putting them in words won’t do, and I am tired, and open the coffee shop in 6 hours.

I have been sleeping terribly lately.

And by lately I mean the last 22 years, I never have been good at falling asleep. I remember tossing and turning for hours in elementary school, when my bedtime was 9pm. King of the Hill was on at 9pm, damnit.

I suppose one good thing about being a late night tosser, is that (oh shit I just realized that ‘late night tosser’ sounds like something Jude Law would say in regards to sex, not what I meant) I think about a lot of things.

Currently thinking:

Seared scallops wrapped in strips of sauteed leek. I make scallops in an endive cream sauce, but I think leeks would at a little more shaprness. The trick would be cooking the leeks so they are flexible enough to wrap around the scallop, but not so stringy that you need a knife to cut through it + the scallop.

The whole Haiti thing really has me sick. Naturally, it would have anyone sick, but I don’t like the way I feel for different reasons. Prediction: This week I will look at the photo’s, read stories, cry, read more stories, feel terrible, get pissed of at the UN evacuating doctors, look at some more photo’s, and get teary eyed again.

Prediction: 6 weeks from now I will have mostly forgotten and not even consider doing a thing about the whatsgoingons in Haiti, except for when it happens to be on the third page of CNN and I remember for a few minutes. Kinda how I feel about the Iran elections right now.

That isn’t very cool. It is my cynicism that I don’t much like. In 6 weeks Haitians will be in just as much trouble as they are now, I just hope most of the world will care more than I likely will.

Seasonal depression isn’t cool, thats for sure. I don’t mind this winter near as much as last, but I still feel trapped. A large part of it is not having a car, but when it is super cold, leaving the house is the biggest hassle in the world. Seriously, do you know how long it takes to put on long underwear, two pair of wool socks, jeans, layer, layer, layer, sweater, thicker sweater, coat, hat, hood, gloves, second gloves, and a facemask? All while making sure there are no gaps for air to touch my skin? It takes me longer to get dressed than to get where I am going half the time.

Conan O’brien has been eff you sea kay eye en jee hilarious lately. Poor guy.

It is almost 4 now, the last 20 minutes I have been thinking about several things I would really like to write about right now, but some are a bit personal and may portray me as something less than a fucking hero who has everything together. not going to let that happen, so peace.

(among other things in list format)

• Strongly considering moving to NYC at the end of the next summer
• I am leading a small group discussion on Art and Christianity tonight at my place, looking forward to it
• Coffee is one of the greatest things that has happened to me. It is really something I work hard at and take professionally.
• The above statement will not make sense to nearly anyone who reads my blog
• “Apathy was the chief mark of the late (Roman) Empire. One of the ways the apathy showed itself was in the lack of creativity in the arts.” Interesting point when put in contrast with shitty Christian art today, is some of it due to apathy?
• I am trying soooooo hard to get a job at this new coffee shop opening up in South Minneapolis, the hour and fifteen minute commute to work is starting to kill me. The hour and forty five minute commute home finishes what is left of me off.
• I have dreamed of living in NYC my whole life. Biggest concerns of moving: Money and finding (wholesome) community. I have a job on lock.
• If Christianity weren’t big enough for me to love coffee, I would leave. I would leave Christianity, not coffee.
• Not to say I love coffee more, the reason I love Christianity more is because it IS big enough for coffee.
• Also getting really interested in specialty cocktails. So tasty, so dangerous when consumed in great quantities.
• Slightly concerned about the Blazers. We can’t seem to beat the teams we will be facing in the playoffs, even when we are in position to do so. Still a long season ahead, not too worried.
• Guy on the radio just said: “highs in the 40’s, tonights low, 23.” I’m ready.

Thats all for today. Be safe, be smart.

I have an issue with words.

Issue isn’t a very good word. Maybe a better way:

I have a sinking spiral of questions about words. Not their definitions, etymology, pronunciation, or even spelling. Their meaning however, gets me.

Allow me to be very very post-enlightenment here.

Words report information. Truth generally. Whether this is fictitious truth or not is beside the point, nonetheless words in their rawest sense, are meant to carry truth with them.

As long as our definition of truth is big enough to include several types of truth, we should have no problem with this.

But like I said a moment ago, it is the words I have problems with, not the truths.

Numbers are static, 3 always means 3, always will mean 3 and can’t mean something other than 3 until other numbers interact with it. Newtons first law.

Words however, are not static. Words only have one reference point, and that is other words.

Words are more like a sea of waves bouncing off of each other, and creating an ever changing ocean.

Whereas a numbers reference point is intrinsic, a words meaning comes elsewhere.

It may seem that this is where I have gone too far left and fallen off the deep end. Not so fast, if I may say.

This very fact, that words are always a little ambiguous, is exactly what I think makes them more profound, and even true, than other things.  In the words of Chesterton:

“Poetry is sane because it floats easily in an infinite sea; reason seeks to cross the infinite sea, and so make it finite.”

Classic aporia.

Stage 4

Stage 3

Here is my explanation of stages 1 and 2, brief, and probably missing some points.

Stick around for stages 3 and 4 in separate posts this week.

‘ >Stage 1 and 2

So did anyone hear what John Piper had to say about the Tornado hitting Minneapolis the other day?

Since you probably won’t read the whole thing, let my summarize:

The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America) had a meeting on Tuesday in Minneapolis regarding homosexuality within the Church, where they voted on whether or not it (homosexuality in proper terms) is acceptable to God.

At roughly the same time on Tuesday, a rare tornado struck downtown Minneapolis. South Minneapolis at first, damaging buildings and houses, and eventually hitting the very building the ELCA conference was taking place.

John Piper, everyone’s favorite ultra-Calvinist pastor thinks the tornado was God’s wrath on the Lutherans (briefly put) for making acceptable in their Church, what is unacceptable to God. Essentially Piper thinks Lutherans are encouraging sin and God showed up to take off a few shingles and cut some power lines.

So fast forward to me and my friends who like to talk about Church drama…

Most, and by most I mean all, of my friends (note that I haven’t talked to any friends from Mars Hill, where Piper is pretty much the Godfather) think Piper is off his rocking chair. I sorta agree.

But I stress that sorta.

First, it is EXTREMELY easy to take any unnatural (by unnatural I mean not occurring daily) force and staple it to your cause.

I mean, I could say that the reason the Blazers won 54 games last year was because of successful Church plants in Portland, and the reason the Lions went 0-16 last year was because of the high gang rates.

There, I just showed some unnatural forces and stapled them seamlessly to spiritual causes.

Saying that a tornado was in Minneapolis just for the sake of disrupting (which it didn’t even disrupt) some Lutherans votes seems a bit superstitious to me. I mean, the tornado hit other things too, like the Electric Fetus, which sells records from people who sing about drugs and sex. Should I assume that the tornado was God’s wrath on that music?

But here is the thing.

I believe in a God that actually interacts with this world. I don’t think the Christian God is always distant, far away, and removed from this world.

I think God’s wrath is a real thing, and God does have the power to send tornadoes towards Lutherans and music stores if He wants to.  Not to say anything is wrong with Lutherans and music stores, but that God does have that power.

Maybe this is a lesson I am learning from my new charismatic friends (who actually think Piper is a nut), but I want to hesitate anytime I hear someone mocking something that really could be the Spirit of God, before I judge and join in the mocking.

The last thing I want to do is blaspheme the Spirit, that is, to call something that is the Spirit, blasphemy.

I guess I am just sticking to my old tricks. Slow to pick sides, but quick to critique those that are fast to pick sides.